Music Scene: Two chances to see The Feelies

By Jay N. Miller/For The Patriot Ledger

Thursday

Oct 12, 2017 at 12:08 PMOct 12, 2017 at 12:10 PM

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40 years later,

The Feelies still do it their way

The Feelies were known for several things during their heyday a couple decades back; wonderfully textured guitars played over roiling rhythms, impressionistic lyrics, infectious punky pop, and a reluctance to tour very much.

But this week includes two Feelies gigs in New England, including tonight at the Met Cafe in Pawtucket, and Saturday at The Sinclair in Cambridge. It’s all part of the band’s 40th Anniversary Tour, which is not so much a lengthy tour as a string of occasional gigs for the band that was first formed in 1976 in Haledon, N.J.

Feelies singer/songwriter and guitarist Glenn Mercer, said the band wasn’t reluctant to tour, but that the travel was difficult.

“it is even more so now that (co-founder and guitarist) Bill Million lives in Florida, and (bassist) Brenda Sauter lives in Pennsylvania,” said Mercer during a telephone from his New Jersey home. “When we play now, every show is literally another reunion.”

The Feelies’ insistent, jittery rock found an audience quickly when they first began playing, and the famed Maxwell’s in Hoboken became their home base. Their 1980 debut album, “Crazy Rhythms” was an underground hit, and was eventually voted of the 1980’s most important albums by Rolling Stone magazine. They are widely cited as a main influence on R.E.M., and Peter Buck from that band co-produced the second Feelies album, 1986’s “The Good Earth.” In those days they were touring the country, opening for arena headliners like R.E.M. and Lou Reed.

By 1988, The Feelies had been signed to a major label, Herb Alpert’s A&M Records, which released their third album, “Only Life,” that year. That may have been a bit more mainstream than the earlier works, and ‘91’s “Time for a Witness” sort of aimed for that original, rawer sound. Movie director Jonathan Demme became a huge fan, and included their music is several of his films, including “Something Wild.” But by 1992, the strains of playing all the time and not making the huge paydays began to show, and when Million decided to move to Florida, the Feelies were essentially finished.

They were coaxed into a reunion show or two in 2008, and eventually re-formed and began working on new material. The indie label Bar None signed them and released the album “Here Before” in 2011. The Feelies have been around steadily since 2008, just not playing any regular schedule or lengthy tours, but rather selected dates in certain cities.

In February of this year, The Feelies released their sixth studio album, “In Between,” and it is probably their most low key, laid-back, introspective work to date. But in typical Feelies fashion, even the most hushed and dream-like tunes have those pot-boiling rhythms percolating underneath. The current lineup includes Mercer, Million, Sauter, drummer Stan Demeski, and percussionist Dave Weckerman.

The album was recorded in Mercer’s home studio with no time limits or budget constraints.

“I think we’re all at periods in our lives where we are naturally more laidback and reflective,” said Mercer. “We’ve had mellow sides before this, but it just wasn’t as consistent as this album. You write from your mood, and do what feels right for what you want to express.”

That textured guitar sound, over those insistent rhythms, has been a hallmark of The Feelies from the start and despite the more subdued new music, those elements are still paramount.

“That’s been the template of the band from the start,” Mercer explained. “I had played with Bill and Dave in a previous band where Bill played bass, but when he switched to guitar and we began putting The Feelies together, we took a long look at the bands we liked. Most of them were two-guitar bands, and so that interaction of the two guitars was at the top of our list of things we wanted.” On most of our tunes, the guitar byplay is almost effortless, although sometimes one or the other will have some ideas coming in. There are no hard, set rules, and it is not something we think about too much. One of the biggest things we try for is that spontaneous communication between us, and all the other band members.”

Mercer added: “Guitars and those hot rhythms are high on the list for any song we do – those are the things we always want to protect. I think it becomes a natural process for us, even with the cover songs we do, which tend to sound like we sound. It’s just a case of emphasizing certain elements, which give us that Feelies sound.”

The Feelies always perform some covers, and the choices are wide-ranging, from Beatles tunes to Patti Smith favorites to chestnuts from Neil Young, Jonathan Richman, the Velvet Underground, or even more obscure stuff like Love Tractor.

“For me, the covers are sort of when our work is done and the play time begins,” Mercer said. “A lot of those are songs we’ve been playing for years, so it becomes an effortless celebration of our roots and influences. It feels like everything coming full circle, and we treat it as the most fun part of our night.”

Given their shared affection for arrangements full of jangly guitars, we wondered if The Feelies had felt a Tom Petty influence.

“Actually we’ve never covered any of Tom’s songs,” Mercer pointed out. “We all like him and his music, and no doubt a lot of the bands that influenced us influenced him too, so there are some common threads there. He will be missed, but I wouldn’t necessarily say he was a big influence on us.”

The last album’s laid-back, more introspective feel comes from a more relaxed recording process.

“I think a strong point of this record is that is has a lot more variety,” Mercer noted. “There are so many songs with strong rhythms, despite the variety of melodies. I think this one is more riff-oriented than all those strumming-guitars records we’ve made. The biggest factor was that we had no deadlines, and the luxury of taking our time to do what we wanted.”

“The finished product is really a combination of a lot of stuff,” Mercer continued. “We did a first round of demos of the songs, and Bill and I tend to write on our own, so we both do demos. Then we did a second round, where we kind of road-test the tunes with the band. And then finally we do a third round, with whatever modifications we want. But some of those later versions couldn’t capture the quality of our first demos, so we went back and used the first takes. ‘Stay the Course,’ for instance, is one of the ones where we ended up going back and using our very first demo because that’s where the energy and best qualities of the song came through the most.”

The new album’s title cut is an intriguing number, done to open the record in a stripped down take, and then concluding the album in a reprise that jams out for ten minutes or more.

“(The song) ‘In Between’ was a departure for me, since I usually write with just guitar, strumming along as words suggest themselves,” Mercer explained. “It had a natural momentum, and I had a concept in mind, looking back to ‘Crazy Rhythms.’ We were also always big fans of “Who’s Next?” and ‘Baba O’Reilly’ from that album, as well as Philip Glass and the idea of building a song around just one chord. We started with a pulse, and made a loop in real time, and ended up abandoning that idea of one chord, and made it about two chords, with some of the same notes.”

“We actually did the electric version first, recording it into a cassette recorder, and going until the tape ran out,” Mercer added. “When mixing we’ll typically strip things down to a guitar and vocal, but this really sounded interesting, so we did a second take with just acoustic guitar and vocal. We loved ‘em both.! That’s not something we needed to game-plan out ahead of time, just something that happened naturally because we had plenty of time in the studio to work it out.”

Mercer said that the band typically does two sets, encompassing all their different eras of music, and totaling about three hours.

“That format enables us to have a nice pace, and start out quieter, and build up from there,” said Mercer. Boston and New England have been among our favorite places to play, and were the first places we really played outside New York and New Jersey from the beginning, so we tend to make yearly trips up that way.”